God of War and PS4 drive solid Q1 growth at Sony

Sony published its financial results for the three months ended June 30th 2018 (also known as Q1 for the 2018 fiscal year), with sales and operating revenue slightly up five per cent year-on-year, reaching ¥1,953.6bn (£13.3bn). Operating income was up 24 per cent year-on-year, rising to ¥195bn (£1.3bn). The report pointed out that the growth was “significant” within the Game & Network Services (G&NS) segment.

And it’s true that this segment definitely drove the growth at the Japanese company, with sales up 36 per cent year-on-year, rising to ¥472.1bn (£3.2bn). Operating income in the G&NS segment also increased 65.7 per cent year-on-year to reach ¥83.5bn (£0.57bn). As a comparison, sales in Sony’s Music segment only increased 12.9 per cent year-on-year.

“This significant increase in sales and operating income was primarily due to an increase in sales of PS4 software including through the network,” the report said. Sony expects an increase in PS4 hardware unit sales by the end of the fiscal year (FY18) as well as “higher than expected PS4 software sales.” God of War continued success, “third-party titles significantly exceeding expectations” and “strong feedback” from titles presented at E3 are among the reasons for Sony to expect more PS4 sales, both hardware and software, by the end of FY18.

The PS4 sold an additional 3.2m units during that quarter, compared to 3.3m in the same quarter last year. Sony expects to have sold a total of 17m PS4 units by the end of FY18. Lifetime sales for the console have now reached 82.2m units worldwide. In terms of software, 40.6m units were sold during the quarter, 43 per cent of which were digital downloads. Meanwhile, the number of PlayStation Plus subscribers has slightly decreased to 33.9m, from 34.2m during the previous quarter.

We talk to Sony’s product manager Jon Edwards about marketing an established franchise as a reboot and how the publisher hopes to expand the God of War fanbase with the most mature title in the series to date